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CNA
41 minutes ago
- CNA
From mass-market to artisanal: These makers are reclaiming the soul of Korean soju
For decades, soju has been known as Korea's cheapest drink; ubiquitous, industrial and almost invisible in its character. Walk down any street in Seoul and you'll find it: rows of bright green bottles stacked in restaurant fridges, recycled in alley bins, or clinking in baskets under metal tables. At just under S$2 (US$1.55) per bottle (an average 360ml bottle at a major supermarket costs about 1,400 won or S$1.30), soju represents one of the most consumed spirits in the world. Jinro Soju has topped Drinks International's annual list of best-selling global spirits for years, notching up sales of 65 million 9-litre cases in the 2013 list. Soju, Korea's national drink, is everywhere, and yet, in the ways that matter, it is often unseen. For most, soju is a social lubricant, a symbol of release – not a beverage that is typically savoured. It's functional and affordable, taken in shots rather than sips. The clear drink is often miscategorised – not quite a wine nor spirit, as its cheapness has come to define it. But historically, soju was seasonal and ceremonial, brewed slowly with three ingredients – rice, water and nuruk (traditional Korean fermentation starter) – and aged with intention, and rooted in place. So, behind the fluorescent hum of the convenience store lies a quieter story, one that predates mass production and marketing budgets. In kitchens, cellars and purpose-built distilleries, a handful of makers are returning to soju's origins. Not by rebranding it for a luxury audience or mimicking Western spirits, but by refusing to let its true form die out. Among them are two very different producers – Sulsaem, a modern distillery committed to reviving traditional methods, and Samhae Soju, the sole inheritor of a spirit once revered in the Joseon Dynasty. Their paths are distinct – one born from contemporary rediscovery, the other from legacy – but their philosophies are surprisingly aligned. In a market driven by speed, scale and sameness, both brands have chosen to anchor their work in memory, method and meaning. THE RETURN TO INTENTION The soju that most people know today is not just the result of technological progress – it's a product of war, policy and cultural adaptation. In the aftermath of the Korean War, South Korea faced devastating food shortages. To protect rice supplies, the government banned the use of rice in alcohol production from 1965 to 1999. In its place, the manufacturers turned to imported starches like tapioca or sweet potatoes, which were fermented into high-proof ethanol and then diluted with water to create what is now known as diluted soju. This new form of soju was designed for mass consumption. By the 1970s, as Korea began its rapid industrialisation, soju became the drink of the salaryman, the factory worker, the exhausted patriarch returning home after 14-hour shifts. It was consumed at pochangmachas (outdoor street food stalls) and barbecue joints, always in a hurry, always in rounds. Rather than a celebration of craft or terroir, soju became synonymous with a ritual of stress release, a coping mechanism embedded in the rhythm of modern South Korean life. By the time the rice ban was lifted in 1999, diluted soju had already become entrenched as the default. The spirit's identity had shifted entirely – from artisanal to anonymous, from mindful to mechanical. The result? A national palate shaped by efficiency, trained to forget that soju, too, once carried the complexity of place and time. 'We grew up thinking that's what soju is,' said Shin Ji-yeon, general manager at Sulsaem.'But it's not. There's so much more behind Korean alcohol.' Instead of viewing soju as a product to modernise, Sulsaem saw it as something to protect. Their process begins with 100 per cent Korean rice, traditional nuruk and slow fermentation, before double-distilling the resulting cheongju and ageing it in onggi (porous clay jars used in Korean fermentation for centuries). 'We aim to create well-crafted soju using traditional methods and Korean ingredients,' Shin said. Unlike industrial soju, which prioritises speed and scale, their goal is to highlight the depth and character of the original spirit, and to restore soju's integrity. Where Sulsaem is building something new from old foundations, Samhae Soju is continuing something that never fully disappeared. At its helm is Kim Hyun-jong, a quiet and charismatic brewer who didn't set out to become the steward of Seoul's historic spirit – he simply didn't walk away from it. 'I came across the original master by chance,' Kim told me in his small tasting room in Seoul. 'He was a designated intangible cultural heritage holder in Seoul, a sojujang. He taught me the way of Samhaeju – and when he passed, I carried it on.' Samhaeju, the aged rice wine from which Samhae Soju is distilled, dates back to the Joseon Dynasty. Its name – literally 'three hae' – refers to its unique brewing schedule: fermentation begins on the first hae-il (pig day in the lunar zodiac), with two subsequent batches added on later hae days, spaced 12 to 36 days apart. This triple-fermentation method, known as samyangju, yields a complex yakju that is then aged at low temperatures before being distilled into a clean, high-proof soju with a soft, round mouthfeel and lingering finish. The process takes months and the yields are low. The ingredients – Korean rice, aged nuruk, and well water – are carefully selected. 'What we are doing is extracting the essence of a refined rice wine,' Kim said. Kim is one of the only known distillers still producing Samhae Soju in accordance with the original lunar brewing calendar. 'I didn't revive this – I've simply continued what my teacher passed on,' he explained. FERMENTATION AS PHILOSOPHY Despite their different settings, both Sulsaem and Samhae share a common scepticism of modern fermentation. Kim is particularly pointed: 'Industrial alcohol uses one strain of yeast. But Korean nuruk is different. It contains hundreds of microbial strains, and each one has a different role in fermentation, depending on temperature, humidity, and how the nuruk is made. It's something you can't replicate in an industrial setting. It's like bread these days – it just rises but doesn't really ferment.' Kim continued: 'Modern soju looks right, but it lacks the depth that comes from proper fermentation.' At Sulsaem, this fermentation manifests in a meticulous attention to ingredient sourcing. Only Korean rice is used. No flavourings, no shortcuts. 'Even the water matters,' Shin said. 'We think about how every element – rice, nuruk, water – shapes the soju's character.' Both distilleries face the same question: If traditionally distilled soju is so much better, why don't more people drink it? The answer is, of course, economics. Commercial soju is cheap because it is made quickly and at scale, often using imported starches, industrial ethanol, and additives. A bottle of green-label soju might retail for less than S$2. Traditional soju, by contrast, takes months to produce, uses only domestic ingredients, and is often made by hand. A single bottle might cost anywhere from S$12 to S$70 or more. Even among curious drinkers, few know how to appreciate the layers these distillers work so hard to preserve, much less pay for them. Kim is direct about the challenge. Traditional soju, he explained, is made with domestic Korean rice and aged through a long fermentation and distillation process – all of which drives up the cost. In contrast, commercial soju is made from imported starches or ethanol and produced at scale. 'It's hard to compare the value,' he said. While many consumers baulk at the higher price of traditional bottles, Kim believes it reflects the ingredients, time, and care that go into each batch. Still, he acknowledges that for those accustomed to neutral, diluted soju, traditional styles can be a shock to the palate, often described as too unfamiliar or too strong. Shin echoes the same sentiments. 'The most difficult thing is the public perception that soju should be cheap, and that most consumers don't understand the difference between diluted and distilled soju.' Will traditionally distilled soju ever replace its commercial cousin? Unlikely. But that's not the point. What matters is that it continues to exist – and that people know the difference. The hope, shared by both Kim and Shin, is modest but clear – that soju, like sake or Scotch, can one day be tasted with intention, discussed with nuance, and valued not for how fast it disappears, but for how long it lingers.
CNA
an hour ago
- CNA
Commentary: The myth of the suppressed Chinese consumer
NEW YORK: The great half-truth about China is that its economy consumes too little and invests too much. Over-investment is a real problem, but underconsumption is not. So the mounting calls on the country to 'rebalance' by encouraging more consumer spending are misguided. In the standard telling, China set out to become a manufacturing power in the 1980s and has since suppressed spending by consumers, so it could pour their savings into building ports and factories. But the suppressed consumer is a myth. So far this century, in real terms, private consumer spending in China has grown more than 8 per cent a year, faster than in any other economy – by far. Over the past few years, consumer spending growth has slowed in most countries, due to ageing populations and falling real incomes, and it has fallen in China as well to 5 per cent a year. But that is still higher than in any other major economy except Turkey, where consumption was boosted by a credit boom and refugee inflows. The myth rests in good part on the consumption share of China's gross domestic product, which is just 40 per cent – well below the global norm. But the reason for this anomaly is not that consumption has grown slowly, it is that the other big component of GDP, investment – in infrastructure, real estate, export industries – has grown even faster, averaging 10 per cent a year in this century. That pace, too, is the fastest for any major economy by a significant margin. Corrected for this long-term pattern of over-investment, the consumption share of China's GDP would be around 55 per cent, closer to normal. Consumer spending has also grown much faster in China than in established and newer Asian manufacturing powers, from Japan and South Korea to Indonesia and Malaysia. And when the original miracle economies were reaching the level of development in China today, they too saw sharp slowdowns in consumer spending growth. Yet, somehow, calls to free the Chinese consumer persist alongside mounting evidence of the steady growth in their spending. It's difficult to spot symptoms of repression among the Chinese shoppers in luxury stores from Shanghai to Paris. Drill down into consumer spending, and growth looks to be weakening mainly for services, not goods. But this, too, is partly illusory. If one factors in services provided by China's government at little or no charge, including healthcare and education, consumption rises significantly as a share of GDP. CONSUMPTION VS INVESTMENT Investment, on the other hand, is clearly excessive at 40 per cent of GDP and roughly equal to consumption. In a typical economy, investment is lower than consumption as a share of GDP but more important to the economic cycle. Consumers can't stop spending on necessities in a downturn but businesses can stop investing, at least for a while. This binge has been extreme. Only 10 countries have ever seen investment peak above 40 per cent of GDP, briefly. At that level, so much capital flows to unnecessary projects that the binge tends to reverse quickly, slowing growth. China, uniquely, has managed by debt engineering to keep investment above that for two decades now. Relentless over-investment is fuelling tension with trading partners, since China ends up exporting a lot of its excess production and breeding dysfunction at home. Over time, such binges tend to divert capital into less productive targets such as real estate – which helps explain China's debt-soaked property market today. The outsiders urging China to focus instead on the consumer can cite genuine 'structural' obstacles to their spending. Internal migration controls block many rural Chinese from moving to higher paying urban jobs. Meagre pensions compel many workers to save for retirement rather than spend. The weakening real estate market and other negative 'wealth effects' further discourage spending. China's leaders seem to be heeding some of this advice. An 'action plan' announced in March promised to 'vigorously boost consumption', but so far the action has been light on structural reform and heavy on subsidies for purchases of goods such as home appliances – which have only a passing effect. Consumers rushing to buy rice cookers now won't be buying them in coming years. China's consumer spending has been growing at a world-beating pace and doesn't have much room to accelerate, particularly not when many households are deep in debt. That debt has tripled in the past 15 years to over 60 per cent of GDP, among the highest in emerging markets and close to that in the heavily consumer-driven US economy. The country can't solve the real problems caused by over-investment – from geopolitical tensions to dysfunction at home – by attacking the phantom problem of underconsumption. The crux of the imbalance is that the state has been pushing too much investment for too long in the name of hitting its inflated growth target, now set at 5 per cent. The answer is not to shift the focus of state meddling to boosting consumption. It is to accept that China is weighed down by a shrinking population, declining productivity and a huge debt load. It has a real potential growth rate closer to 2.5 per cent than 5 per cent. And as growth slows to a more realistic pace, consumption will naturally expand as a share of the economy.
Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Trump says he will probably extend TikTok deadline again
Mr Trump said in May he would extend the June 19 deadline after the app helped him with young voters in the 2024 election. PHOTO: REUTERS Trump says he will probably extend TikTok deadline again WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump said on June 17 he would likely extend a deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the US assets of short video app TikTok. The president said in May he would extend the June 19 deadline after the app helped him with young voters in the 2024 election. His comments to reporters on Air Force One on June 17 reiterated that sentiment. 'Probably, yeah,' Mr Trump said when asked about extending the deadline. 'Probably have to get China approval but I think we'll get it. I think President Xi will ultimately approve it.' Mr Trump has already twice granted a reprieve from enforcement of a congressionally mandated ban on TikTok that was initially due to take effect in January. The law required TikTok to stop operating by January 19 unless ByteDance had completed a divestiture of the app's US assets. Mr Trump began his second term as president on Jan 20 and opted not to enforce it. He first extended the deadline to early April, and then again last month to June 19. A deal had been in the works this spring that would spin off TikTok's US operations into a new firm based in the United States and majority-owned and operated by US investors but it was put on hold after China indicated it would not approve it following Trump's announcements of steep tariffs on Chinese goods. Democratic senators argue that Mr Trump has no legal authority to extend the deadline, and suggest that the deal that had been under consideration would not meet legal requirements. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
